Hoshiko Upset at ACC
Corporations Conspire to Quash Magical Girl Supremacy
American Continental Championship 1st June 2024 Online (UTC-4) 94 Players 10 rounds SSS, Cut to top-16
Watch the Swiss and Top Cut streams on the official NSG twitch. Find the Top Cut decklists here.
Highlight: Wowarlok (Arissana) vs jan tuno (Ob)
ACC was the first of three continentals championships, and one of the most prominent netrunner events of the season. As well as offering incredible prize support, these tournaments also serve as gateways to the prestigious Intercontinentals Championship—an invitational event that is only open to the very top players from each continental. It was no surprise, then, that ACC attracted almost 100 players from across the globe.
Unlike the Boston NANPC event last week—which was almost perfectly balanced—the faction spread at ACC was skewed on both the Corp and Runner side, with players favouring HB (38%) and Anarch (51%). There was less honour or profit to be found in swiss—both Jinteki and Criminal shared the lowest attendance rates at 17%—but both factions made up for that with impressive showings in the cut (31% and 25% respectively).
Notably, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of Hoshiko (39%) players was huge. This single identity outnumbered all of the Shaper (34%) players combined. A lot has been said about the power of the Ashnikko deck. Slightly less has been said about how easy it is to just pick up and play. The combination of these things make it an obvious choice for so many players. It also makes it the most obvious threat for Corps to respond to. So, was this going to be another Hoshiko dominated Top Cut? Or had someone found a Corp strategy that could consistently beat “the best runner deck”?
Turns out that different players had actually found about five or six different Corp strategies that could be used to challenge Hoshiko. As the swiss rounds started to unfold, it quickly became apparent that the legion of untold protagonists were no longer apex predators, they were prey.
The two big concerns were Sportsmetal and Ob, both of which feature an extreme mix of asset, gear check and fast advance strategies that unoptimised Ashnikko lists can struggle to respond to (even with 2 x Miss Bones, Hannah and Maw). Their win rates against Hoshiko were 59% and 58%.
PD (57%) and Azmari (65%) were similarly adept at securing wins against our favourite magical girl, but at the cost of a worse game against shaper. The new Rw/oR green central pressure cards (Burner, Cataloguer, Trick Shot) do serious work against Seamless Launch rush and Reeducation strategies. Hush and Airblade are similarly good versus the Funhouse + B-1001 glacier list. PD had a 29% win rate against Arissana. Azmari was 18%.
AgInfusion and Issuaq pulled Hoshiko in yet another direction by threatening to flatline with Punitive Counterstrike (57% win rate), and had even better results against Arissana (71%), but lost hard to Esâ (17%). This was a niche strategy, but an effective one.
By far the biggest threat was Asa Group, which demonstrated an incredible 83% win rate against Hoshiko specifically and a 68% win rate in general. However, for the most part, Asa players were let down by their runner, and only the legendary—two time world champion—Sokka was able to take his classic Skunk + Void and Wage Worker + Biotic list into the Top Cut.
Hoshiko’s (swiss) win rate was 43%. Her cut conversion was a measly 6% (compared to 17%, which was the baseline for this tournament). The overall runner win rate was 47%. That’s down from 55% at NANPC Boston, and 66% at Fly to EMEA#3.
These results are a gift to the competitive netrunner community. For those of us that have been struggling to play against Hoshiko, these results promise to shake up the meta and may lead to more runner diversity. For those fair weather Hoshiko players, this tournament should serve as a prompt to explore other runner archetypes. Less obviously, the real gift is actually to the diehard Ashnikko fans.
One of the few issues with the Ashnikko deck is that it is very easy to change the deck to make it worse without realising it, and similarly difficult to tune the deck to make it any better than it is. This is simply because the deck has proven so powerful, and had such good results, that the normal testing feedback loop has been subtle at best. Now, the threats are manifest, and Ashnikko players have a sizeable set of negative results to get their teeth into.
This is just the wake up call that the meta needed, at just the time it needed it.
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Congrats to QTM on an incredible showing!
Final Standings
Rielle (QTM) - PE [6-2-0] / Kit [6-2-0]
jan tuno (QTM) - Ob [7-1-1] / Esâ [7-3-0]
Sokka (The Future Perfect) - Asa Group [5-2-1] / Lat [5-1-1]
Hectorest - Issuaq [8-0-0] / Lat [3-4-1]
AugustusCaesar (TAI Breakers) - AgInfusion [4-1-2] / Arissana [5-1-1]
~~~ Intercontinentals Championship Invite Cutoff ~~~
FireRL (Muntal Bost) - AgInfusion [4-3-0] / Hoshiko [5-2-0]
RotomAppliance (Snare Bears) - PD [4-2-1] / Sable [5-1-1]
Krysdreavus (QTM) - Azmari [4-3-0] / Sable [5-2-0]
SebastianK (TAI Breakers) - RH [3-2-1] / Arissana [5-2-0]
Wowarlok (TAI Breakers) - BTL [4-2-0] / Arissana [4-3-0]
Chord Gang (QTM) - Azmari [4-2-0] / Esâ [4-3-0]
Kikai (EA Sports) - Sportsmetal [5-2-0] / Arissana [2-4-0]
Koga (TAI Breakers) - Sportsmetal [4-2-0] / Steve Cambridge [3-1-2]
Solomir (House Hippos) - Sportsmetal [4-2-0] / Sable [3-2-1]
Analyzechris (Snare Bears) - Sportsmetal [3-2-1] / Hoshiko [4-2-0]
Syd7 (House Hippos) - Sportsmetal [4-2-0] / Arissana [3-3-0]
Definitely something to be said for how innovative and left-field some of these decks are - Sable on just 2 huge breakers, with Wizard's Chest and Jeitinho, the Undefeated Issuaq, Esa and 60+ card Arissanas - it's a wild time